Why Leadership is Needed for Bringing Plans to Life

Dust in Organizations

Leadership is needed to implement plans and to get the ball rolling—otherwise people are simply not going to be motivated about making changes or initiating any plan of action. As Real Estate B-School (2016) notes, “the study of leadership eludes most people,” and the reason for that is simple: they are not taught the qualities or skills of leadership, especially when it comes to decision-making. To make good and effective decisions, a person has to have critical thinking skills—the ability to identify a problem, collect the relevant information, assess the data, and make a decision.

When the authors state that “planning documents usually gather dust in organizations that lack leadership,” they are simply pointing out that leaders are the ones who come to a situation with a vision, communicate that vision, and get a course of action moving that will implement the vision. Planning documents mean nothing if there is no leader who can use them. They are merely a tool, and it takes a skilled leader to use that tool.

It is not different from a person who buys a shovel and then parks it in his shed. He intended to dig holes in the yard to plant trees. But the holes are not going to dig themselves, even though the tool is there. A leader must be inside the man—one who drives, inspires, and gets the action going. Every organization has to have a leader so that plans, no matter how good they may be, do not end up being shelved because no one has the skill to implement them. Leaders know how hard change can be for people, which is why they are leaders: they use social and emotional intelligence to overcome those challenges and get a team moving in the right direction. They make the decision to implement the plans and take on that responsibility.